It's no surprise that the Center for Rural Affairs supports lots of new transmission lines across the Midwest. The CFRA wants to maximize economic development in agricultural areas. But, are they tossing the baby out with the bathwater?"Farming" wind by covering prime farmland with wind turbines, and then selling the product to distant urban areas, is big money. The profit potential is huge. However, it is not a sustainable practice. It requires a conscious choice to designate winners and losers. In order to pull in income for a winning farmer hosting turbines, many other farmers must lose some or all of the current value of their farm operation by allowing the wind farm owner a right-of-way through their factory to ship the wind to the desired market. This is a non-starter and cannot be remedied through one-time "market value" payoffs or hostile takeovers of productive operations. Just like any unwanted intrusion into your income stream, many landowners vehemently oppose being burdened by new transmission lines. In many instances, a farm's heritage simply isn't for sale at any price. This presents a big, big problem for the farms and communities who want to profit by hosting turbines, and they just don't want to take "no" for an answer.In that vein, the CFRA has attempted to find some middle ground in the debate by identifying contentious issues and recommending solutions in a new report, From the Ground up: Addressing Key Community Concerns in Clean Energy Transmission. Not a bad premise, however the CFRA went about it in exactly the wrong way. Instead of communicating openly with transmission opponents and actually listening to their concerns, the CFRA based their report on news stories, and then made assumptions about the thought process and motivation of opponents they had never met. I've spent a lot of time over the past 5 years communicating with many of the opponents of the projects CFRA studied, as well as other projects, and I think CFRA got it so wrong that their report comes off as arrogant and out of touch with reality. It is something to be scoffed at and rejected, and it may only ratchet up the anger, instead of ameliorating it.CFRA begins with an incorrect premise that transmission must be built.

The nation’s most abundant wind resources reside in the remote regions of the Upper Midwest and Great Plains. Residents of these areas routinely enjoy the benefits of wind production in the form of lease payments, jobs, economic development, and tax revenue. But these same lightly populated communities demand only a small amount of electricity, making it imperative that a new generation of transmission infrastructure be put in place to move this energy from where it’s produced to where it’s needed most.

This is where the failure starts... right at the beginning.

The nation's most abundant wind resources reside offshore, on the east and west coasts and in the Great Lakes. Coincidentally, this is also close to the population centers. In addition, communities across the country are increasing their desire to keep their energy dollars at home, not to send them to Midwestern states, or overseas to transmission owners/developers in foreign countries who want to invest in America's infatuation with "big wind." It's just a non-starter when there is no market for the product.As technology improves, how we produce and use energy is changing rapidly. The promise of energy storage changes the equation considerably. These "lightly populated communities" will soon be able to store wind energy to be used locally. Booming distributed generation of small-scale, on-site renewables and more reliable micro-grids are making long distance transmission obsolete.However, that doesn't provide a profit stream for transmission developers and investors, and local energy prices will be lower than those achievable in urban markets. What's driving this relentless desire for new transmission is pure and simple greed.Here's an example of just one of the things CFRA got completely wrong:

NeedConcerns over need are more difficult to address than some other stakeholder issues. The concern over need often relates back to a concern over who will ultimately benefit from the project—is a transmission project needed for this area, or is the area merely a means to connect a generating source to a distant community? Localizing benefits of a transmission line can be a difficult task, especially if the developer is not in need of any materials or services that a community can provide.Another option to address this is to make clear the benefits of improving the aging transmission infrastructure that runs across the country. Showing how upgraded transmission can affect consumer’s rates and reliability may be a good tact for developers. Although this doesn’t necessarily improve the local economy, it does show stakeholders that they are not taking on a transmission project without any sort of reward.

Concerns over need cause an affected individual to trace the project back to its source. Who says this is needed and what is their motivation? Of course, the motivation is always money, and that's where the individual's belief in the project developer or planner's information ends and the opposition begins. There is no "good tact" for developers at this point. They have lost all credibility.CFRA believes that even flimsier need arguments will convince entrenched opposition, but that merely makes the presumption that opponents are a bunch of easily fooled Mayberry rubes, adding insult to injury. My advice to transmission developers would be to toss this report in the recycling pile along with the Sunday comics. It's strictly bush league. The CFRA concludes:

In order to improve the transmission system in the Midwest and across the country, it is important that developers and advocates confront the concerns of those affected.

I would recommend that any company attempting this actually find out what the true concerns are by listening the those affected, and not by reading a reporter-filtered version in the newspaper.My advice to newly-minted transmission opponents? There's nothing wrong or shameful about your opposition. Other affected individuals share your thoughts and feelings. What the transmission developer proposes is not okay, and you don't have to accept it.

Keryn, you are correct. I called the CFRA office in Nebraska last month, when a representative finally made it in to work (probably they were out doing chores, right?), they did call me back and listen about my experiences with a transmission line company, they admitted they havent had many, if any, conversations with impacted property owners. Yet, they have the arrogance to think they understand the situation better than those who are impacted, to the extent they use grant funding monies (and private funds, wonder who that might include) to spread the un-fact-checked propaganda of the transmission companies. How can they attempt to sway opinion without educating themselves or considering all sides first? When they attempted to make it a moral, ethical issue about renewables, and accuse me of being selfish about our property, I asked what they were willing to sacrifice to get these lines built, suddenly there was silence, i guess the idea of losing what belongs to them made the project seem not so necessary. This has happened with every single supporter of the project I have talked with, hypocrisy exposed.

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amy

1/11/2014 04:42:29 am

I had a similar experience with the Dept. of Agriculture while sharing my concerns about a transmission line project. The "guard dog" at their reception desk said she had heard nothing about it and that they did not get involved in those issues, while the whole time they have a video playing behind her desk that advertized their departments concerns for helping farmers preserve their land, and their dedication to promote the future of farming. I know good and well that they have received 100's of calls about this particular transmission project, yet the "guard dog" questioned my desire to speak with someone concerning this issue. Then she conceded and called a superior to ask who it was that they should have me talk to, who was also not in at the moment. She made me write my own message, which I am pretty sure was thrown in the trash after I left the building. I have heard nothing but crickets from their office since then.

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Keryn

1/12/2014 03:45:28 am

These self-styled farm advocates are making themselves irrelevant and alienating the population they exist to serve. If the funding they receive to cheerlead for misguided energy policy is an acceptable substitute for public support, I don't suppose there's much to be done about it.

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Debra

1/12/2014 03:58:09 am

Thinking the Center for Rural Affairs would be focused on preserving the country side being attached by unneeded transmission, I had a similarly dissatisfying conversation with them about the issues and the alternative solutions to save people money and ensure the delivery of reliable energy. The "result" was the request to send press releases on activities regarding Midwest transmission expansion and a white paper written on the financial and environmental benefits of a decentralized (micro grid) structure. Well...it hasn't been published. Perhaps it risked the funding they get from Re-Amp, which they assured me it would not. Hah!

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Keryn

1/12/2014 04:24:20 am

I applaud your efforts, Deb. I believe the CFRA has already made up it's mind and taken a position on the issue that negates the concerns of communities and consumers. The rest is just fluff.

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Kansan

1/12/2014 07:32:20 am

The Center for Rural Affairs needs to change its name to The Center for Urban Affairs.
They do not seem to care about farm folks.
I do not know when they decided to jump into bed with the dirty dealers of "clean" line but in doing so they have sold their soul and our soil to the company store.
Farmers are few and far between and we need our city cousins to help us keep our rural communities healthy and not hurt us with 200' transmission towers and 600,000 volts of electricity on dangling lines across our fields.
Our rural areas need to be repopulated with young families who can retain their current office jobs by moving to rural areas with their computers that are powered by REGIONAL wind energy. Young folks would have their needed jobs ( and health insurance ) and also could help raise local food.
Instead of wasting physical energy in a " work out club" their work out could be doing chores ( farm aerobics ) or in community gardening !
Maybe the CFRA should support solar energy especially passive solar homes for these young families...oops not much money in that for BILLIONAIRE investors.

The CFRA has been a major disappointment. They've edited the articles they put on their site- pro RICL. Funny how the links to the balanced articles that expose some of the major red flags with "Clean" Line aren't listed or linked anymore......................

It "MAY" ratchet up the anger? LOL When are CFRA, "Clean" Line, and the transmission industry going to understand that they've been doing stupid stuff all along (that any 7 year old would identify) that ratchets up the anger. They are their own worst enemies and they don't even realize it.

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Andy

1/15/2014 02:17:49 pm

... or know how to fix it! It's like an addict preaching sobriety.

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Barney

1/15/2014 02:22:10 pm

Did ya get a load of that sock puppet on the midwest energy news article pretending she would be willing to pay extra for royalties paid to landowners? How shocking it will be for "her" to find out that some things simply ARE NOT FOR SALE in order to assuage her "greeniac" tendencies. As if that's a real person and not some CRFA egghead testing messages on someone's version of a virtual focus group. Where's the two-way mirror?

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ratchet

1/15/2014 02:23:03 pm

crank
crank
crank
crank

wheeeeeeeeeeee!

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amy

1/16/2014 03:01:11 am

May Center for Rural Affairs name should be changed to Center for Rural Interference. Then the acronym of CRI would be fitting because the more I hear about the assault on the farmer, the more tears I shed.

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About the Author

Keryn Newman blogs here at StopPATH WV about energy issues, transmission policy, misguided regulation, our greedy energy companies and their corporate spin.In 2008, AEP & Allegheny Energy's PATH joint venture used their transmission line routing etch-a-sketch to draw a 765kV line across the street from her house. Oooops! And the rest is history.

AboutStopPATH Blog

StopPATH Blog began as a forum for information and opinion about the PATH transmission project. The PATH project was abandoned in 2012, however, this blog was not.

StopPATH Blog continues to bring you energy policy news and opinion from a consumer's point of view. If it's sometimes snarky and oftentimes irreverent, just remember that the truth isn't pretty. People come here because they want the truth, instead of the usual dreadful lies this industry continues to tell itself. If you keep reading, I'll keep writing.